It’s a crime in which the victim is also the criminal—so whom do you
prosecute? Underage youths who exploit themselves online can be subject
to criminal pornography charges, explained child abuse expert Catholic University CrimProf Mary
Leary at a Law School event Feb. 5, but so far courts are applying the
law unevenly. Leary, the former deputy director for the Office of Legal
Counsel at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and
the former director of the National Center for the Prosecution of Child
Abuse, proposed a better way to deal with what she called
“self-exploitation” cases.

Leary, currently an assistant
visiting professor of law at Catholic University, spoke to a crowded
room of more than 60 Virginia Law students at the event, sponsored by
the Virginia Journal of Law and Policy. Leary is writing an article on
the subject for the journal. Virginia Law professors Anne Coughlin and Stephen Smith responded to her remarks.

Juveniles
or teens are practicing “self-exploitation when they take sexually
explicit photos of themselves and others and distribute them, without
coercion or grooming from an adult," Leary said. She cited recent news
stories from several states in which teens had taken photos of
themselves or others using their cell phones, the images of which were
then distributed to friends, some of which ended up on unrelated
Internet sites.

“The reality is that whenever a juvenile
…creates the images of sexually explicit activities and then
distributes them, they have now produced child pornography and they
have now distributed it,” she said.

Prosecutors are unsure
how to proceed. “On the one hand we have taken…a very aggressive stance
with regards to child pornography…and consequently we have pretty
severe criminal penalties,” she said. Pointing to the more lenient
juvenile court model, Leary continued, “On the other hand…we recognize
that often destructive behaviors by a minor can be the result of
someone perhaps not fully mature enough to appreciate the social harm
of the activity they are causing.” Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]